


Can't put my finger on you

by juniperknight



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Eren Is a Little Shit, Levi is a Little Shit, M/M, OCD, Omegle, PTSD, Tumblr References, obsession with cats, reclusive!levi, sociopath!eren, talking to strangers, trans!Armin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-22 03:40:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3713554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperknight/pseuds/juniperknight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meet Eren; hard working, sociopathic tendencies, mild PTSD and an unhealthy obsession with meeting new people (or at least Levi thinks so.)</p><p>Meet Levi; reclusive, agoraphobic tendencies, mild OCD and an unhealthy obsession with cats (Eren thinks it's fascinating, actually.)</p><p>Typical 'met through the internet' type of story featuring an unpredictable author, enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chips Ahoy!

**Author's Note:**

> It's 2:34am, ironically.

So I’m trying to get across the room at 2am with a glass full of milk in my left hand. It doesn’t help that the entire room is in a fucking shambles because for some reason we’re all slobs.

 

Did I mention that the light bulb blew last week?

 

I feel like that could be a serious tidbit of information I can offer to my own predicament.

 

I have to make stupid scooping motions with my feet, because honestly, I have no idea what important shit is on the floor that I could break. I perform black magic while I’m doing it too, becoming an overgrown mouse because I have 2 roommates sleeping in here _somewhere_.

 

Actually, mice aren’t that quiet. That’s a terrible idea.

 

So I tiptoe past the lions in their - _our_ \- den, and make use of the cookies I’d left on the windowsill.

 

Don’t worry, I've brushed my teeth already for this morning. 3 hours ago in fact, when I first woke up and decided that I’m done with sleeping altogether.

 

Nightmares, _again_.

 

Armin had suggested that getting a glass of milk in the night to help me sleep is a great idea, but instead I’m tempted to think that the stale Chips Ahoy! on said windowsill have much more value than sleep right now.

 

I swear, as soon as the sun goes down all of my movements grow louder by tenfold. Each insignificant task completed at maximum volume for the entire apartment complex to hear. Forget flushing the toilet.

 

So of course opening the pack of week-old cookies soon turns into a business reminiscent of performing god damn heart surgery in order to try and be quiet about it.

 

And my parents tell me that university life _isn’t hard_.

 

I balance the cup on a part of the mattress that doesn’t feel as if it has the temptation to make me cry over spilled milk and flip open my laptop, which of course destroys my retinas within 2 seconds of start-up.

 

I never turn off my laptop, and I don’t have a password protecting it (which is probably a bad idea with Jean lurking around) so I seriously question my entire existence because my laptop’s background is _blindingly white_.

 

It takes several attempts to blink the screen imprinted to the back of my stupid eyeballs from my vision. I get flashes from blue to purple to pink to white before it pulses gradually into the distance like a fading acid trip.

 

I’m not ready to become an adult.

 

I scroll through my tumblr dashboard for a good twenty minutes, because once you start it’s pretty hard to stop which I suppose is the point of the entire website. This is all fine and well before I realise that I have an essay due in tomorrow - or today if you want to be so fucking technical about it. Stupid Jean.

 

It’s a simple essay, about 2000 words on The Great Gatsby, which would be great if word counts didn’t intimidate the majority of all students.

 

Armin, being the great Agony Aunt that he is, had suggested that I write gibberish at the bottom of the page and change the font colour to white if I ever felt like I couldn’t make the total. A fabulous plan, except for some unholy reason my English Lit professor doesn’t appreciate GoogleDocs and prefers that we copy and paste the body of our essays into emails and send them to him before class. Stupid Nile.

 

In theory, it’s a great idea, kudos to Armin for thinking of it.

 

It’s also a shame that Armin has a tendency to be a plagiaristic little shrew at times, so kudos to whoever thought of the loophole originally.

 

Instead, I babble on about symbolism for an entire 7 pages, exceeding the word count by 3000 and making me want to shoot myself in the face. To my own defence, there’s a butt-tonne of symbolism in The Great Gatsby, and I’m a sucker for it.

 

The symbolism, not the book. I hate the ending, don’t even get me _started_.

 

I shipped Daisy and Gatsby so hard. I’m not even sure if ‘so hard’ is the correct terminology to use for shipping but fuck tumblr slang anyway. Nile’s just going to have to deal with my long ass essay.

 

Still, I love symbolism, what a stupid idea to write about it when there’s such a measly word count in the first place. Armin’s (plagiarised) idea has turned out to be pretty redundant.

 

But as I said before, I’m a sucker for it, seeing all the little things that usually escape people’s attention. As a child I’d once dreamed about becoming a detective. At least until I realised that dead bodies aren’t much fun at all.

 

Cluedo isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

 

Instead, I occupy myself with studying people. I watch, I learn, I gain information. Armin said that it’s creepy in a way, but what can I say? I want to become a psychiatrist.

 

Dad wasn’t pleased, as you can imagine, a well-renowned doctor at Trost General Hospital he expected his son to follow in his footsteps. Or maybe something slightly less embarrassing, like a male nurse, or a paediatrician.

 

Instead, daddy dear was gifted with a gay son that enjoys analysing people, such fun. I won’t admit it to anyone, but I feel slightly offended that he doesn’t appreciate me as much as I think he should. I personally feel like a rare specimen, a shiny Pokemon card in modern day society. I would say the that I feel that ‘shiny Raichu’ kind of rare, but I’m too self-loathing to think that I’m somehow worth $10,000.

 

Who the hell even has that much money to spend on a god damn trading card from the 90’s anyway?

 

Nobody.

 

At least I hope not, people come in many shapes and forms after all. It’s probably why I find people so fascinating to begin with. Just when you think that you have people figured out, they do something that surprises you.

 

Like buying an extortionate piece of paper printed with a character from a shitty anime that should have died 20 years ago.

 

Don’t get me wrong, love Pokemon, own most of the games, but after third gen things got increasingly underwhelming. I mean _Garbodor_ , seriously?

 

With this thought in mind I quickly flick on the switch to my bedside lamp, which in retrospect would have been a great fucking help in trying to cross the room while balancing shit earlier, and listen to see if I accidentally disturb the sleeping pair.

 

Jean does nothing, only remains with his ass in the air and face suffocated into his ratty old pillow. What an ass. _Oh_.

 

I snort at my own pun.

 

Armin, on the other side of the room and somewhere in the nest of stuffed animals to keep him from feeling homesick smacks his lips audibly and turns his back to the light, mumbling something about going to the carnival.

 

Sighing with relief, I bring up an Incognito Tab and type away into the search bar, heart beating quickly I bring the laptop closer to my face for a better angle to look into the webcam.

 

_Omegle: Talk to strangers!_


	2. Thursdays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I didn't expect to get this many kudos. Is this real life?

I’m hungry, though it’s a strange kind of hunger that feels as if it’s trying to suffocate me, weighing down on my chest. It sounds far more angsty than it feels.

 

It’s 7:29am and I haven’t slept yet, so of course I feel ridiculously cold considering it’s Spring and my limbs are all shakey. I roll out of bed once I realise that the sun has risen and I can finally see what I’m doing.

 

Poptarts, good plan.

 

My insomnia is in it’s prime. Everytime I feel like I’ve just about sorted out my sleeping pattern everything turns to shit. It’s the little things that flush it down the metaphorical toilet. This week it’s because the last lightbulb in my bedroom has blown.

 

The only source of light I’ve had for the past 16 hours has been from my laptop and the lack of control is _maddening_ when I’m trying to get to sleep.

 

But then, I’m too short and too damn proud to really do anything about it.

 

I figure I could reach the light fitting with one of the barstools from the kitchen piled with every book that I own in my shitty apartment, but I only recently got the cast off of my leg from trying to dust the blinds in the bathroom by standing on a bucket.

 

Spoiler: It broke. I fell ass over tit into the bathtub. Erwin laughed hysterically on the phone when I called him for help. He only started to feel guilty when he saw how quickly my leg bruised and had to call an ambulance.

 

Yeah, fuck calling Erwin or Hanji. Not because I know I’ll be the butt of a plethora of short jokes but because I seem incapable of asking for help over things that I _should_ be capable of doing myself because _I'm meant to be an independent god damn adult._

Most of the time I don’t need to.

 

They notice the little things that make me tick, like the general hatred to everything outdoors. Hanji goes out of her way to make things easier for me, like buying 12 packs of toilet paper from Costco and pretending that friends usually do these sorts of things for each other.

 

I’m not even mad, because I know I’ll treasure each individual square to my heart’s - and ass’s - content.

 

It’s saying a lot when you’re 34 with a shopping list of problems and still capable of maintaining healthy friendships with people.

 

Two people, but this isn’t a popularity contest. Asshole.

 

I narrowly avoid tripping over Sawney, latest addition to the cat tribe, while on the way to the kitchen. Little furry shit is sprawled so efficiently on the black rug that he’s damn near invisible. I might throw the rug out, it seems like an accident just waiting to happen.

 

My toaster is an old piece of shit, but I stick the poptarts in it anyway and watch over them like a hawk, checking the calendar as I do.

 

April 9th.

 

It’s a Thursday, and everyone enjoys Thurdays don’t they? The middle of the week is over. Only 2 days left of the working week, and the beauty of Thursday is that it’s Friday tomorrow.

 

Sure, Friday means another day of work for most people, but nearly everyone sees the weekend as nearly here.

 

Too many people live for the weekend in my opinion; why can’t the whole week be so exciting?

 

It’s euphoric for me most of the time, being a writer, I don’t have to worry about the days of the week. It’s only my compulsion to cross off each day on the calendar as it comes which enables me to keep track.

 

Realistically, a Thursday could mean anything to me.

 

Which leads me to this particular Thursday, where I’m being forced to leave the house yet again.

 

Why do I have friends?

 

Oh right, keeping sociable. Assuring the people who ‘care about me’ that I haven’t died just yet - apparently people tend to do that when they don’t see daylight for long periods of time. Who knew?

 

I can’t help being introverted, the outside has no appeal to me. I never watch the news, and I never check the weather. Those two small tidbits of everyday life are alien to me.

 

For one, I’m not interested in the doom and gloom that the rest of the world seems intent on revelling in. My writing isn’t particularly popular, I’m not a best seller. I can barely afford to keep living in this apartment that will someday house my rotting corpse, so I feel particularly useless watching tragedies unfolding around world when I’m incapable of donating any of my money or time into making the situation better.

 

As for the weather? Surprise me.

 

It’s in my nature to contradict myself. I _like_ surprises.

 

Within reason. Hanji and Erwin threw me a sad little surprise birthday ‘party’ last year, and I just about died.

 

Hanji had even managed to cram the cats into miniature party hats for the occasion. I think she knows me better than anyone else, it had been the highlight of the entire day to be able to take pictures and post them onto my tumblr.

 

My shitty little tumblr blog revolves around the fuzzy felines. I’d be much more embarrassed if I didn’t have around 1,700 followers.

 

Albeit they don’t know that I’m practically middle-aged, lonely and gay as all hell.

 

Erwin says I don’t give myself enough enough credit, that if I ever finally make that eharmony account that I should include I’m a natural born hobbit with a predilection for sweets.

 

Asshole.

 

I try ejecting the poptarts from the toaster, but this proves to be useless for the seventeenth morning in a row without hitting it. It’ll do that later. Instead, I blink tears from my eyes when I burn my fingers trying to get them out, then I opt for using tongs instead. It’s not a surprise to me that bad things keep happening no matter how hard I try.

 

I manage to pull out one sheet of icing and whatever the rest this glorified breakfast treat is made of, the corner crumbling off in the process when I drop it onto my plate. The whole process is reminiscent of that child’s game Operation, where if you hit the metal edges the buzzer goes off.

 

Rather than an ugly groaning sound, the inner of the toaster flash blue and static races up my arm. I scream like a little girl witnessing the cruelty of moths for the first time when the whole thing sounds like a gunshot and trips the fuses throughout the entire apartment.

 

I stand at the counter still, poptart still in my tongs and my bottom lip trembling.

 

Slowly, I put down everything, go where my phone is plugged in on charge in the hallway - all the outlets in my bedroom are occupied - and quickly text Hanji that I won’t be able to leave the house today, that it feels like I’ve been having bad omens all morning already.

 

Nevermind that it’s only 8:00am.

 

I don’t bother waiting for a reply. Instead I drag one of my kitchen stools through the hallway and to the fusebox by the front door. Sawney and Corporal staring at me from the shadows like I’m committing crimes against humanity.

 

My foot doesn’t cripple in on itself or anything remotely stupid like that when I finally turn the electricity back the way it should be. Kind of. Now, none of the lights in my apartment work.

 

I decide that I _hate_ Thursdays.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter at 7:00am with no sleep. Staying awake for long periods of time makes me philosophical.


	3. Sibling Rivalry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot will thicken eventually, but I'm just using the first few chapters to give you a feel of what Eren and Levi's lives are like. And yes, Armin is adorable as hell.

“What do you think I should choose, Eren?” Mikasa flaps around the two separate garments in distress, “The red dress, or the blue dress?”

 

“Calm down Keanu Reeves, this isn’t the Matrix.”

 

It’s Friday night, and it’s Jean’s idea that we all go out for ‘celebratory drinks’ - there’s nothing to celebrate, but I don’t partake in activities of the alcohol variety unless there’s some sort of occasion.

 

I’m a lightweight, get back in your cage.

 

“I don’t really like either of them. Do you have a coin that I can flip to help me decide? Or is there a third option?”

 

Sure, girls _like_ asking me for fashion advice. _Eren’s gay, he’ll make you look fierce_. People need to stop looking at the world through a pinhole. I’m not a stereotypical twink consumed with Vogue magazines and lazing in sunbeds. I can barely put an outfit together, let alone talk fashion.

 

Mikasa’s an exception though, I’m allowed to be incredibly blunt about my opinion and I think she appreciates it that way.

 

No beating around the bush.

 

“I have a black one in the wardrobe that’s the same style as this one…” Mikasa tapers off, holding up the multi textile red and frowning at it.

 

“Go for that one, black suits you better anyway,” I say, waving a hand dismissively and checking my phone for any notifications.

 

Since my freshman year I’ve kept up with a fair few pen pals through social media. Mikasa says that I’m obsessed, but I just like meeting diverse people. I love to learn, find out what makes them so different yet so _human_ at the same time.

 

Human’s a nice way to describe it. We’re all seemingly built-in with the same morals and ideals from birth, though this is mainly attributed to the mechanics of society and religion.

 

Every once in a while though, you meet someone who doesn’t conform, and it’s these non-conformers who excite me the most. The majority of the time I don’t think they realise how fascinating they truly are, which is a bit of a shame, really.

 

“But I _always_ wear black,” Mikasa pouts, scrunching the dresses in her hands, “and Jean said that I look good wearing some colour.”

 

I figure that it must be weird for most guys to witness their sister having an existential crisis over clothing while wearing none at all. I’m used to it.

 

“I doubt that Horseface would mind,” I don’t bother looking up from my phone, I know she’s going to reprimand me anyway, “Besides, he’s only going to end up taking it off at the end of the night anyway. What’s the prob-OUCH!”

 

The clothes hanger hits be just beneath my left god damn eye and she doesn’t even look sorry.

 

“Forget what I said, wear the blue one,” I seeth, rubbing at my abused skin.

 

The roundest ass you have ever seen - no, I’m serious, it looks like it’s made for promoting squats - turns to me instead as she picks through her wardrobe for the aforementioned dress.

 

Honestly, there hasn’t been this must commotion over a dress since that shit storm went down on tumblr a few months ago. God, don’t get me started on _that_.

 

I stood underneath several different lights (even the fluorescent lights in the supermarket), I stared at a white wall for five minutes before checking it again, and I told myself over and over again that the lighting behind the dress was natural.

 

The dress never did look blue to me. It was positively traumatizing.

 

But even then I didn’t get hit in the fucking face by my petulant sister, just because she can’t independently dress herself.

 

To get my own back, I take it upon myself to rearrange most of her bedroom while she’s in the shower. She won’t notice right away. That’s the beauty of it all, regardless of how hard she’s probably going to punch me in the face later on. Sibling rivalry, am I right?

 

Once I’m done shoving her socks and underwear into the same draw with a thorough jumbling for good measure I head back across the hall and into the room I share with Armin and Jean, praying to myself that the smell of Jean’s douchebag perfume has faded away like it was just a bad dream.

 

It’s wishful thinking, but chasing him around with a can of Febreeze for a good 10 minutes definitely raises my spirits.

 

“What happened to your eye, Eren?” Armin asks from the bed, dousing his cheekbones in peach coloured blusher.

 

I don’t answer right away, too consumed as Jean helps me try to yank up my skinny jeans. It’s quite the commotion. If you didn’t know what we were doing you’d probably assume it was some extra aggressive sexual activity.

 

“Mikasa threw something at me because she’s incapable of accepting the truth,” I gasp out, laid on the bed with my legs against the wall. Trying to wiggle my hips while Jean pulls at the waistband.

 

“Fuck, Eren,” the two-toned grunts, sweating slightly at the brow, “They’re not going to fucking fit!”

 

A whine escapes me and I dig my thumbs under my waistband to try and assist him.

 

“They do! I’ve managed to get them on before!”

 

The zipper had a habit of falling down, so of course my superior intellect came to the conclusion that it would be a great idea to forgo having one altogether. I sewed them closed, and now I’m left with a feeling like someone has gone at my thighs with a cheesegrater due to Jean’s long-ass finger nails ‘needed’ for playing guitar as we struggle to get them on.

 

I feel sorry for Mikasa’s coochie.

 

I use up the rest of my miracles for this lifetime getting the obtrusive material over my hipbones. It takes a good ten minutes of shaking my ass at Jean in an ‘I told you so’ dance before I realise I won’t be able to piss without literally tearing them off.

 

The stupid Horse nearly pissed himself enough for the both of us at the hilarity.

 

“I-I can’t believe it,” He wheezes, rubbing a stray tear from his eye, “For a guy who get’s straight A’s you do some really stupid shit sometimes.”

 

It speak several unheard prayers to the Holy Trinity so I can calm myself down and not attempt to throw a punch at him while Mikasa’s still in the apartment.

 

When I get Jean alone though, it’s going to be a god damn free-for-all.

 

Mikasa’s protective of Jean, I don’t think he realizes just _why_ she is.

 

It used to be me who got all the attention in highschool, right up until I told her that I’m only into dick and reality hit her in the face like a particularly wet fish.

 

I knew she’d been crushing for a long time, but as my adopted sister it felt too insestial for me to feel remotely ‘okay’ about it.

 

I owe Armin for telling me how to go about that one. He’d transferred to our school when we were sophomores and it had taken him a while to realize that it wasn’t ‘sisterly love’ she’d been devoting herself to.

 

I guess I owe Horseface too, for being her love interest after that. Even though he hadn’t the faintest clue...  He’s totally into her as well, but I think Mikasa would cut my head off if I told him how she felt.

 

_“If it happens, it happens. Don’t rush and spoil things.”_

 

Yeah, they’re going to be really _fucking_ old before they admit their feelings to each other.

 

After a change of jeans and Armin’s few minutes to parade around the apartment in his latest dress with our undivided attention, we finally leave.

 

We’re only going to one of the bars in Sina, so we take the last bus at 8:15pm. We’ll probably get a taxi back if we decide that walking is a bad idea, and I’ve a feeling that tonight, with the heels Armin’s wearing, it probably will be.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, I'll update sometime maybe.


End file.
